Emer McLysaght: Then it happened. The racist slur rolled off his tongue so easily

I was out to lunch a few months ago at a fairly posh Dublin restaurant. It was me and two other women and we were there as a treat – a celebration, actually. I remember being surprised at how busy it was and in particular how many groups of men were casually dining together on a Friday afternoon, when I was reminded that it was a rugby weekend, we were adjacent to a swish hotel and they were probably gearing up for the match.

We were still eating our mains when he swaggered over: a man from the other side of the room, breaking off from one of the lunching groups. He boldly interrupted our meal and our conversation, lowering himself into a fourth spare chair and inquiring if we were journalists.

We weren’t wearing trilbys or bearing “PRESS” cards, nor did we have notebooks and pens behind our ears, so his assumption about our day jobs remains a mystery. We politely humoured him – we didn’t have much choice, his elbows were already on the table – and said we were celebrating a recent success in book publishing.

What else would he be willing to say? Why would you go out of your way to use a word that's known to cause hurt and harm to a group of people? A word that's used to dehumanise, stereotype and incite violence?

He wasn’t listening. He was never listening. He only wanted to know if we were journalists who could write an article about his construction-adjacent company. He was deeply confident, bolstered by booze, and I remember thinking, “He’s one of them. A You Can’t Say Anything Anymore.”

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He was a walking, talking red flag. He continued to monologue about his company and ignored our polite yet increasingly firm suggestions that he should return to his friends and leave us be. At least a couple of his pals were embarrassed, and at one stage one approached to try to coax him back to his meal.

And then, almost in comical slow motion, it happened. He moved from droning on about rugby to a story that had been in the news that week: a controversy about racism in cricket. “You can’t say anything anymore,” our unwelcome oaf opined.

He then uttered a racist slur, one that had been at the centre of the controversy.

I remember being horrified that the slur could roll off his tongue so easily. How many times had he said it before in casual conversation? How could he think it was okay to say it now with such indifference, in front of strangers, apropos of nothing?

What else would he be willing to say? Why would you go out of your way to use a word that’s known to cause hurt and harm to a group of people? A word that’s used to dehumanise, stereotype and incite violence? A word that causes this man no harm to say, but spreads harm every time he does.

“You can’t say anything anymore,” is a popular refrain among those who believe in “cancel culture”. “Cancel culture” exists in a fantastical context where there is a woke, liberal mob roaming the streets, baying for blood and waiting for an upstanding member of society to say something they don’t like, so they can tear them down and ruin their livelihoods.

In reality, people usually get “cancelled” because they say or do something that exists somewhere on a spectrum between hateful and insensitive.

I'm not worried about getting cancelled, because if I do then I've more than likely done or said something insensitive. I hope to God I never say anything hateful

You can believe something truly hateful if you want. You can even say it out loud and nobody can stop you. What you can’t do though, is expect no response, particularly if what you’re saying or spreading is deliberately harmful, dangerous or hurtful to a group of people.

Take our unwanted lunch pal. He said his racial slur. He believes it’s just “banter” and that people have been saying it for years and we should just let them continue, the poor dotes. It doesn’t mean I have to listen to him or his ignorant ramblings, or that he’s not completely wrong in a society that’s becoming more sensitive to the microaggressions that build oppression.

There’s a lot of stuff on that spectrum between hateful and insensitive. Those who believe in “cancel culture” would probably call it a minefield. I’d call it an open book exam. The information is all there for you to get full marks and do no harm, or you can bulldoze through, hurting yourself and more importantly causing collateral damage.

I’m not worried about getting cancelled, because if I do then I’ve more than likely done or said something insensitive. I hope to God I never say anything hateful.

In a recent interview, Irish comic and writer Dylan Moran was asked if he worries about “saying the wrong thing”. The question seemed to imply that he had these “wrong things” inside him just waiting to come out, and he rejected the implication.

Asked about his former writing partner Graham Linehan, who was banned from Twitter after “repeated violations of our rules against hateful conduct and platform manipulation”, Moran said that Linehan – who has controversial views on transgender people – is “free to say whatever he wants, obviously. He’s also free to be in the consequences of that. We all are.”